Friday, December 21, 2012

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980) Premium Art By Boris

Another image-centric blog post! Man, I'm getting lazy. Anyway, when The Empire Strikes Back premiered in 1980, acclaimed fantasy artist Boris Vallejo (whose Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon images from the period are also memorable) was commissioned to paint these dramatic posters as premiums for Coca-Cola.

I don't recall if these were available at fast food restaurants or at theaters. Can someone who actually remembers let me know in the comments?

ADDENDUM: From the comments, it appears that these posters were available at both the Burger Chef/Burger King restaurants and at "participating theaters!"

I think the bottom batch (with the captions) were a fast food promotion for chains that served Coca-Cola. Sounds like Burger Chef for most areas. Not sure for areas that didn't have a BC unless the bottlers gave them to theaters that were clients. Considering how many times kids came back for Star Wars in those pre-VHS release days, I'm sure a few movie houses did a different poster each week to get the kids back in.

The top one was definitely sold at theaters during the summer of 1980, but I only remember the other three being offered at Burger Chef a few months after the film came out (and unlike the Del Nichols posters, these were not available at Burger King also). As a kid obsessed with everything Star Wars, I had all four.

ABOUT THIS BLOG

This blog is dedicated to the science fiction films and television series of the 1970s - give or take a few years (say, 1969-1983) - including such nostalgic favorites as Star Wars, Space: 1999, UFO, Space Academy, the original Battlestar Galactica, Jason of Star Command, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Logan's Run and many others.

But be warned: I still love these productions with all the enthusiasm I held for them as a kid, and they will be treated here with affection and respect. If you're looking for someone to snarkily denigrate "old" movies - or like to do that yourself - you've come to the wrong site.

So journey with us back to the days when special effects were created by skillful hands and spaceships were detailed models, when robots were obligatory comedy relief, when square-jawed heroes and cloaked villains battled among the stars -- and the future was fun!

PLEASE NOTE:I do not sell (nor even buy, all that often) the memorabilia and merchandise I write about on this blog, nor do I have any idea what value your "collectibles" might have. That's not what this site is about, so please don't ask me.

ABOUT ME

Christopher Mills is a professional writer of comic books and short fiction in a variety of genres, as well as a DVD reviewer for several pop culture websites. His taste in entertainment clearly peaked when he was about 15, which certainly explains his embarrassing obsession with James Bond, hardboiled crime fiction, comic books, paperback pulps, space opera, Universal/Hammer/Toho Monsters, sword & sorcery sagas, old genre TV shows and vintage B-movies.

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Reviewing genre DVDs Since 2005

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